Twin Cities STC
Kent Taylor
Information Quality: What are your Standards?
11:00 am, Friday, June 13
TIES ( Directions )
Usability Professionals' Association International Conference 2008
June 16-20, 2008
Baltimore
2008 IPCC
July 13-16, 2008
Montreal
SIGDOC Conference
September 22-24, 2008
Lisbon
World Usability Day
Transportation
November 13, 2008
J.J. Carlson and Oleksandr Komarenko received the top honor in their category for the poster they submitted to the 55th Annual STC Convention, which was held in Philadelphia from June 1–4. Dr. Gretchen Haas served as their faculty advisor for the project.
Both J.J. and Oleksandr attended the conference and received their award from the judges.
On April 16, 2008, MSU STC Student Chapter members toured Minneapolis-based Uni-Systems, an engineering firm that specializes in transformative structures such as retractable stadium roofs. Beth Frampton, technical communications manager, explained the areas of the engineering processes that her department is responsible for at Uni-Systems, emphasizing content management, documentation, web development.
Later, trip participants networked with University of Minnesota students and faculty over lunch. (The complete story is available on the MSU STC website.)
For the fourth year, the technical communication program at MSU has planned, designed, and produced the conference materials for the annual conference of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. The ATTW conference was held April 2, 2008 in the Doubletree Hotel in New Orleans. This year the conference theme was Connecting Communities.
The project planning began in the fall of 2007 with a meeting between Matt Willemsen, assistant professor of art (graphic design), Kim Urban, art major (graphic design), Karli Bartlow-Davis, M.A. candidate in technical communication, and Lee Tesdell, associate professor in English (Technical Communication). Kim submitted a cover art design on the theme of Connecting Communities. After several revisions to her art work, she designed and delivered the final cover art. This design was used on the folders, programs, and posters. Karli re-designed the page style for the program and then created the 60-page program in Adobe InDesign. The program consisted of three main sections: the inside front and back covers for professional acknowledgements, the conference program details including the titles, locations, and times of the papers that were presented, and the advertisements from university programs and publishers.
Doug Fenske and Ryan Schuh at Printing Services worked with Tesdell to produce the documents. The deliverables included two hundred fifty 9 x 13" folders, two hundred fifty 60-page programs, eight 24 x 36" posters, and five room schedules. Printing Services at Minnesota State ran 250 copies of the program on the digital photocopier and printed the posters on their 24 x 36" poster printer. The conference folders were printed by a local commercial printer.
The project is the subject of an article by Dr. Tesdell in Business Communication Quarterly 71.2 (2008): 216–221.
All coursework necessary for completing degrees or certificates in technical communication is now offered online. The MA and the graduate and undergraduate certificate programs can be completed within a two-year cycle of courses.
Non-resident students completing all of their coursework online can apply for market rate tuition—basically in-state (undergraduate/graduate) tuition—by completing the 100% online learner (undergraduate/graduate) form.
We are offering the following online courses Fall 2008:
For more information about online courses, certificates, or degrees, contact Dr. Roland Nord.
